Four Questions for "U.S. Senator" Kendrick Meek

(Note: this is a commentary, not a show link).

Here’s the final question you should be asking Kendrick Meek (and the rest of our congressional delegation): With the extremist right wing leadership of Israel threatening massive bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities within months, including those in its capital city, using American weaponry bought with my tax dollars, an attack many experts say would be only partially effective due to the underground sites and would set back Iran’s nuclear program only several years and require recurring bombings into the future, unite the Iranian people behind the conservative regime just when Iranian politics are evolving beyond the revolutionary radicalism of 1979, and launch a major cross-border war in the Middle East that could dwarf the insular Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and subject the Israeli people to missile strikes, death and destruction, and result in disruption of oil production and transport through the Strait of Hormuz, which could cause $200 or more per barrel oil, $6 a gallon gasoline and possible shortages and gasoline lines that I will have to wait in, and probably draw the United States into its third war of aggression within eight years at great expense on top of our $1.8 trillion annual deficit, which will further enrage world opinion against the United States and increase the danger of revenge attacks within my country, leading to the continuing erosion of my civil liberties and trillions of dollars more spent on militarization, why are you cosponsoring the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009 (H.R. 2194) which would embargo imports of refined petroleum into Iran, which to be successful would require interception of cargo ships approaching Iran, which would probably trigger armed clashes in the Persian Gulf, as a deliberate policy of shutting down Iranian transportation, industry, electricity generation, home heating and food production, which, according to numerous observers, would result in mass unemployment, hunger, hardships such as living without electricity or heat in the cold Iranian winters, and even death; which is essentially a declaration of war on Iran; why are you cosponsoring this act aimed at shutting down Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which is a country’s right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty it has signed, when the act says nothing about curbing Israel’s illicit nuclear arsenal of several hundred warheads or address its failure to join the Nonproliferation treaty or submit to any of the international inspections you unilaterally demand of Iran or address Israeli’s continuing illegal land confiscations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, even in the face of requests by President Obama to cease, let alone address the now-documented war crimes Israel committed against hundreds of civilians in Gaza using weapons you yourself have voted to provide with my tax dollars, why are you not instead sponsoring a resolution to demand that Israel not attack Iran and be subject to a cutoff of U.S. military aid if it does so?

For background on Iran, check out the Mark Weaver Show site and search “Iran”

Third question for you to ask Meek: Why aren’t you cosponsoring the Fair Elections Now Act for strong public funding and media vouchers for congressional campaigns? Alan Grayson, Suzanne Kosmas and 75 others are. The health industry is flooding the air waves with hundreds of millions of dollar of advertising, most of it supporting (or should I say “buying”) watered down reforms that preserve industry price setting power. If congressmembers weren’t so afraid of big money going against them next year, they’d be fighting for real reform.

Note: these questions aren’t just for Kendrick Meek, they’re for all of Florida’s not-so-progressive Democratic congressional delegation (with the exception of Alan Grayson).

By the way, why is our fire breathing liberal Robert Wexler AWOL on this? I keep telling you, he postures as a great liberal, but he falls flat. Where are the rest of them? Debbie Schultz is no surprise, just another in her long list of rightish positions on important things.

Health reform? Here’s an excerpt from the Aug 1st Mark Weaver Show interview with Tallahassee M.D. Raymond Bellamy of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Here’s the 2nd of four: why didn’t you join the Progressive Caucus?

Answer: if you don’t like his answer, time to start shopping around for a real progressive Senator. I still think Matt Damon should be approached.

Here’s the first of four questions you should ask Democratic Senate nominee Kendrick Meek: Why aren’t you opposing the expansion of the war in Afghanistan? which is now costing taxpayers $1 billion a week when we have a trillion dollar deficit, Florida’s infrastructure is crumbling, and we can’t come up with enough money for health reform, when 54% of the public opposes the war in the new CNN poll and only 44% support it, there is continuing billions dollar contractor fraud, waste and abuse in the country, the Taliban had no knowledge of or direct relationship with 9/11 and were even being salaried by the Clinton administration until 1999, the 911 plot was carried out from Al Qaeda “bases” in Florida and Hamburg, Al Qaeda soldiers are now dispersing to new “bases” in Tajikistan, Somalia, Yemen, Algeria and other countries, not to mention that the eight year old invasion is taking twice as long as it took to defeat both Hitler and Imperial Japan, not to mention killing and maiming increasing numbers of our troops and thousands of Afghanistan civilians and independence fighters which is generating more hatred of the U.S. and motivating further terror attacks inside the U.S. which is further destroying our civil liberties, driving the politics of this country to the right and bleeding our economy with trillions of avoidable security spending?

Answer: you won’t get one, just vague deflections, unless you are highly informed on these issues and actually pin the guy. I regard the Florida gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races as a joke. It is an outrage that two utterly conventional Establishment party figures are allowed to walk away with such important nominations without any sort of competition or meaningful discussion.